


The Ram's Skull

by Gammarad



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Archaeology, Demon Summoning, Gen, If you want you can just read it instead of listening, Paleontology, Podcast Pastiche, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Professional/Academic Document: Magnus Archives-style Statement, Transcript Included
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25177852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: Buried in a pasture, a scholar and his assistant found the remnants of an unnatural creature, one of the Lucavi demons. The assistant allows an archivist in modern-day-equivalent Ivalice to record her account of the events.Includes both audio file and transcript.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Unconventional Fanwork Exchange 2020





	The Ram's Skull

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CorpseBrigadier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorpseBrigadier/gifts).



**Listen:**  
  
_[MP3 format - 6.5MB - 7 minutes](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m6oXADfVjAIIQDOh_R46eE1X77vYeDEu/view?usp=sharing)_

* * *

_The Statement of Jenna Alder on the topic of an excavation performed by the scholar Kennebeck in the Achadian sheep pasture belonging to the Honored Vittachon, on the southwest edge of the former border of Dalmasca._

_Begin when ready, Miss Alder._

Under the field where the Honored Vittachon's shepherds kept his sheep, he found the skeleton of an enormous ram, even larger than the monstrous ones he'd seen a few times through his binoculars. I think he said the youngest shepherd had come to him afraid of monsters, seeing the rib cage sticking up out of the ground. 

He came to talk to my employer, Kennebeck the scholar, who is of great renown in the field of paleozoology. If it is the skeleton of a creature, he can determine what it was and how it lived better than any other scholar in all of the Archadian Empire. I don't know why the Honored Vittachon wanted to know this. Maybe he thought he could sell it? He's a wealthy trader, not just a farmer.

I followed along, to keep track of the essentials and assist, of course. My employer is an absent-minded sort of scholar, the kind who forget their supplies in the pursuit of knowledge, you understand. And it was not too far away, but far enough that it would be our entire day and perhaps we would want to stay at an inn rather than return to the city, if Kennebeck wished to examine the site further. 

As it turned out, I was dispatched to hire laborers to help dig up the bones. I was careful to hire only the ones who seemed to have a sense of delicacy. One in particular made an impression on me. When I started to ask questions, a few of the men made crude remarks. I dismissed those out of hand, and one was insisting, you see. This man, his name was Moku, put his hand on the angry one's shoulder and said a word in his ear. That was all.

The four I hired were better spoken and better at listening to my words than the rest. I told them Kennebeck would pay well and I made sure he did, for laborers. They earned their coin, between shoveling heavy mounds of dirt and sand, and very slowly bending over to delicately dust away the remaining soil from the bone. 

The scholar was elated at how well the laborers I'd chosen were carrying out his wishes. He even congratulated me on my choice. I was overjoyed, and then just at that moment, the laborers fully unearthed the creature's skull and lifted it out of the ground. A shiver of dread came over me then. Its horns were ... do you know how a sheep's horns curl? These curled in a way that drew the eye, and held it. I was careful not to look too closely at them again. 

That, I think, is how I missed the next discovery. Beneath the ram's skeleton, once it had been fully excavated, was a remarkably well preserved floor. Laid out on that floor was a ritual diagram the likes I had never seen before, not in visits to the museum, not in my summoner aunt's books into which I peeked many times as a girl, not in the histories that lined the walls of Kennebeck's study. It was as complicated as a ritual circle, yet unlike. I had the distinct impression that any ritual carried out with this circle would be one of great harm to the surrounding life.

Kennebeck was fascinated, so taken with his discovery that he spent another entire day at the excavation site. When I brought him his evening meal, he showed me the crystal he had found nestled within the skull. It appeared to be a sort of quartz, purplish and transparent, formed in a smooth shape but apparently broken in half. 

Another day passed. I sensed ill intent from the crystal as well, but Kennebeck ignored my pleas to set it aside or wrap it in protective silks. As he was no mage, he said, the crystal would be inert to him, waiting for mana to call its energies forth. 

That was true of most crystals, I had to admit, but not this one. He was having the laborers excavate beneath the ritual circle now. Moku, the one who had been kind to me, was the one to tell me of the new find. Kennebeck did not mention it to me at all. There had been another crystal beneath the circle, at its center, nearly an exact duplicate. Also smoothly carved, also broken. 

When I watched from the doorway as Kennebeck did not realize I was there, I saw him put the two halves of the crystal together, and beams from it shone out over him. 

Every shadow cast had the spiraling horns that the enormous ram had. Impossibly, they all pointed at Kennebeck.

I had no idea how to save him.

Then I made what I now think was my crucial mistake. I took my worries to Moku. He touched my shoulder, and into my ear he told me he would take care of it for me. At the time, it seemed a lifeline, that Moku would find a way to save Kennebeck from his unworldly pursuit of dangerous scholarship. 

Moku was only a laborer, though, however good he was with people. He had no careful or clever plan, only a simple one. He thought, I think, to return the crystal to its place. Or maybe I misjudged him, and he thought to steal it. That is what Kennebeck says, that Moku stole the crystal to sell. But I had got to know him over those few days and I don't believe that of him.

The last I saw Moku, he had the crystal in his hand. But, I wonder, was it really Moku then? Or was it some, some other creature... he seemed so different. His expression was narrow-eyed and mouthed, so different than I had seen him before. And his shadow, it seemed as though it had those horns... 

He walked up to me, and I felt scared. I'd never felt afraid of him before. Then he said -- he said strange things. He said, "I could take you with me, but I'll be too busy to take proper care of you." I had thought I wanted to hear something like that from him, but when he said it, I felt sickened. He stared at me and I wanted to run away, but I had frozen in place. "That would be no way to repay the great gift you've given me." I didn't answer. It didn't make sense. The only thing I'd given him was the job, and that's not a gift, he worked hard. Then he said something like "You'll do well for her when I have found the rest." After that I could move. I made some babbled excuse and... when I had gathered my wits and got my courage up to go back, he was gone.

This is what the summoning circle looked like. [Papers rustle] You see? I don't know all these words, but Kennebeck says they are twelve mystic signs that the people who lived here before the Dalmascans believed predicted their lives. He has become obsessed with finding the crystals. Yes, he says there are more of them, one for each sign. 

I hope he never finds them...

_Statement ends._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to RandomCommander for providing the voice for the Archivist. The voice of Jenna Alder is by the author of the story.


End file.
